[Coral-List] Open Access
Richard Dunne
RichardPDunne at aol.com
Fri Apr 25 12:03:17 EDT 2008
Dear Paul and Coral List
Springer Open Choice, involves the following:
1. Articles made available with open access, free to anyone, any time,
and anywhere in the world via SpringerLink electronic access.
2. Author not required to transfer copyright to Springer.
3. Author free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work, and
make derivative works.
4. Author free to permanently archive the article with full open access
to anyone anywhere in the world for viewing, full-text searching,
downloading and further distribution.
5. In exercising all these rights and uses the author and journal are
required to be properly acknowledged and it must not be for commercial
gain. (Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 2.5 Generic License).
I am not sure what part of this you specifically object to. It seems to
me to involve full open access so long as there is no commercial gain
involved (reasonable) and that the author and journal are acknowledged.
It is the author who holds the copyright not Springer so it can be
archived anywhere by the author so long as he/she and the journal are
acknowledged.
Certainly if any research is publicly funded then it is open for the
funding agency to provide publication costs to the researcher and then
require that the publication be given open access either in journals
such as PLoS Biology or in commercial journals. As one might expect,
different publishing models will have a different cost base. Thus for
example, subsidised open access in PloS Biology costs the author US
dollars 2,700, whereas in a Springer journal it will be 3,000 dollars.
Doubtless there are other cheaper journals and others that are more
expensive.
Unless you can find a publisher willing to make the entire process free
then there will always be a requirement for someone to pay. Nor am I
sure how you deduce that these costs are "overpriced" given that the
Public Library of Science journals make it clear that they are non
profit and also receive support from philanthropic organisations and yet
they still find it necessary to charge US dollars 2,700 for an
electronic publication.
Richard P Dunne
Paul Blanchon wrote:
> Dear Richard (and list)
>
> Reiterating Juan’s point, Springers ‘Open Access Policy' is clearly no
> such thing. If they released access or copyright to the journal
> archives, then that would be different. The problem as I see it is
> this: Given that tax-payers largely fund coral reef research, their
> money should be spent in the public interest, not to create
> intellectual property for the financial benefit of commercial
> publishers. It is true that they pay for copy editing, manuscript
> formatting, and publishing. But public access to the research they fund
> should not be held hostage to these secondary and presently overpriced
> expenses. In short, publishers have improper control over a public
> investment.
>
> Saludos
> Paul.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Dr. Paul BLANCHON | Investigador Cientifico
> Reef Systems Unit (Pto. Morelos)
> Inst. de Ciencias del Mar y Limnologia (ICML)
> Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM)
> Ap. Postal 1152, CP 77500 Cancun,
> Q. Roo, MEXICO
>
> Tel. +52 (998) 87-10219 ext 47
> Fax: +52 (998) 87-10138
> Work E-mail: blanchon at icmyl.unam.mx
> Home E-mail: blanchon_s at yahoo.com
> Web: www.icmyl.unam.mx/arrecifes/-blanchon.html
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> "Equality in access to science is not only a social and
> ethical requirement for human development, but also
> a necessity for realizing the full potential of scientific
> communities worldwide and for orienting scientific
> progress towards meeting the needs of humankind"
>
> Declaration on Science and the Use of Scientific Knowledge
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>
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